


The Boy in His Bed

by 1bad_joke



Series: The Boy in the Box [4]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Blood, Bottom Jensen Ackles, Collars, Crossdressing, Dark Jared Padalecki, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hurt Jensen Ackles, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Older Jared Padalecki, Panic Attacks, Possessive Behavior, Riding, Rough Sex, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Jared Padalecki, Topping from the Bottom, Twink Jensen Ackles, Young Jensen Ackles, forced come eating, love sick, slightly ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1bad_joke/pseuds/1bad_joke
Summary: All good things must come to an end.Jared can't believe that. He won't.The Fourth and Final installment to The Boy in the Box series
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Series: The Boy in the Box [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775725
Comments: 60
Kudos: 42





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Let me start like always by saying please read the tags! These fics are meant to be entertainment only, so please be safe.
> 
> Woo! Now that that is out of the way, this has been a long time coming. I first started this series in 2017, then didn't... do anything with it for years. One of the very, very few blessings lockdown created was giving me the time to carry on and finish it. In all honesty, ambition planned for this to be written and posted last August; neuroticism and bouts of depression have it here for you now in 2021, haha. This will have 4-5 chapters posted once or twice weekly, depending on editing, so please don't worry whether this will be an abandoned wip! It's written, I swear.
> 
> That brings me to my final point and then I'll hush up. The response I've gotten to this twisted little series has been so heartwarming and reaffirming. Comments have been so passionate about the many ways this could end. (Some were so good, I wish I had thought of them! I'm dark, but not that dark though.) This is more or less the ending I always envisioned. I hope y'all like it. I really do.
> 
> And with that said, enjoy! (Peers at the tags) ... or not.

Jared is happy. His is so, so happy.

He's been deluded to what he believed happiness to be. As a kid, it could be found in every other slip of a moment: Opening presents on Christmas morning, snagging the last cookie, a successful prank pulled on Meg, his mama's hug, or his father's approving smile. As he grew older, it was found in his accomplishments: A's on tests, turning the key in his first car and hearing that baby purr, getting into the right school, putting a ring on the right girl's finger, buying the house, and living the American dream. Little, scattered rays of sunshine in the never-ending overcast day of his life. Fleeting spurts of warmth that left him colder than the last.

He thought-he thought-he thought, but--- oh, now he _knows_.

Happiness is this here, now, fucking into this perfect boy beneath him, fucking into a hole he's made his.

Happiness is Jensen.

And vice versa; Jensen is happiness. Those two things are synonymous with each other and hopelessly intertwined in Jared's mind. Simple as that. His boy is a dopamine high, and fuck if Jared's ever going to come down.

Two, razor-sharp hipbones, two hand holds slicing into his palms; they keep him anchored so he doesn't float away while his own hips snap-snap-snap forward into Jensen. His cock ramming into that wonderful heat. An addict's pleasure. He's fucking until he can't stand to pull all the way out and he presses close, draping over an undulating spine and digging and drilling and trying to get deeper, trying to get into the very heart of his boy.

His faces smears along an angel's wing folded into a shoulder blade, his tongue tastes the freckles speckled there. Imagined cinnamon and salt. Through the smacking of skin on skin and his own fast panting, his ears pick up the sweet, little noises coming from below him. Thready moans and soft hitches of breath. He wants more. One hand abandons its grip to slide around past a concave stomach down shaved smooth skin to feel--- _oh_.

Happiness skyrockets to euphoria. A pleased growl rumbles past white, snarling teeth as his hand closes around hard, dripping flesh and squeezes, earning a choked cry and a vicious constriction around his cock. No coaxing needed. Jensen got hard all on his own.

For awhile, Jared worried if he was doing something wrong when a young, healthy boy like his Jensen wouldn't get an erection and he considered the aid of little, blue pills. The idea made him sick, like Jared was failing as a man in a very specific way, always having to wring pleasure. Luckily, after time and fierce dedication, the problem seems to have resolved itself.

Jensen's figured out he loves this just as much as Jared does.

Vindicated and judging by the broken keens being smothered into a lean bicep, Jared's pressing relentlessly against that spot inside his boy that never fails to make him weak. He grins and drives in harder, his fist closing around his prize possession with a teasing rub.

The quietest, most pained, “Fuck” leaves Jensen before his arms buckle. Jared's other arm curls under him, hefting him up onto his lap. Now, now he's even deeper. Jensen arches with a heartrending cry.

Jensen shivers, rocking the slightest rhythm and arrests each one of Jared's muscles. Climax threatens to take him from just those few, aborted movements. His boy's flanks are littered with finger-shaped bruises; a rainbow print of **Mine-Mine-Mine**. Ten new, magenta splotches join them in strangling desperation to maintain control, tighter with the hurt sounds he provokes. Eyes slammed shut and a couple shaky inhale/exhales. He can feel Jensen twisting around to look at him in askance, but that miniscule shift wrenches a low grunt and Jared's clawed digits dig in harder, stilling him.

After a moment, he feels ready enough to go without exploding in the next two thrusts. He tentatively starts lifting the nothing weight of the boy waiting passively on his lap. The sugary sigh passing through full, bitten-red lips nearly undoes him. Jared grits his teeth through it and re-seizes those narrow hips, bouncing Jensen on his cock in quick strokes.

Suddenly, hands previously clenched atop skinny thighs, go flying as Jensen spasms with a yelp. One lands as a fist buried in his own wild, blond hair -tugging- while a palm slaps backwards onto Jared's side, scrambling for purchase. That touch... that voluntary touch. The fire under Jared's skin flares to a blazing roar. He ruts and ruts, acutely aware of the slick pink of Jensen's insides clutching him and his craving for more as blunt nails drag burning lines into his side. Punched-out mewls are woven through Jensen's every other breath.

Jared's head lulls forward to press against the peak of Jensen's spine, his mouth mindlessly sucking and panting. He's so close. Too close. Not yet, not without Jensen. Just as he remembers to reach out to take Jensen in hand, his boy's back bows with a choked whimper. His nails bite fresh red. His channel tightens and tightens and--

 _Oh fuck_. A sting of pain. Jared's orgasm crashes through him. Jensen's still shooting and humping back onto his cock when he fills him in hot pulses. Jared's heart swells and a giddy, airless laugh falls out of him. Jensen's never come from just his dick. He melts. Jagged, crescent scratches on his hip bleed sluggishly.

If this isn't love...

Jensen's splayed out in his lap in a boneless display. Evidence of his pleasure oozes down the heaving bumps of his ribs and glisten across his groin. He hasn't crawled away yet, and Jared's fingers are stiff releasing his grip only to wrap his arms around Jensen to pull him closer. Sweat glues them together in a seamless curve.

Jared really could stay like this forever.

The lax muscles cradling his softening length clench and force him out as Jensen crawls off him. A band-aid ripped away, leaving Jared cold and sticky. On the other side of the mattress, the blanket is drawn around and up over his head. His boy says nothing and just lays there. Unsurprising since he's not much of a cuddler, but it still stings nonetheless. Deciding to lay down himself with only a corner of blanket to graze his thigh, Jared scratches his chest, convinced it's the prickles of cooling sweat causing his discomfort.

:::

Jared doesn't leave the house anymore.

He used to for groceries or anything else they might need, but food delivery and online shopping seemed like the best solution for his reluctance to be too far from Jensen. An invisible tether felt just as keenly and unforgiving as the one shackled around Jensen's ankle. It hooks into his skin, burrowing. Seizes him by his bones. His whole body aches when he's away. It positively threatens to shatter apart in painful, bloody fashion during the long work hours.

He'd only had to make that last commute once to pack up his cubicle, pick up a company-owned laptop, and to shake to his boss' hand while the man gave his condolences for Jared's failed marriage and sent along well wishes for the sick aunt Jared was care taking all through a pitying smile.

Now, for a flexible eight hours, five days a week, he hunkers down in his haphazard office once known as the dining room (the only room containing furniture similar to a desk), tapping away at keys and entering in halfhearted figures.

His attention drifts with the dust motes caught in the sunlight cutting through the room. There's many things he rather be doing, namely starting with a “J” and ending with an “N,” but as long as a check increased his bank account, he'd keep on dragging himself to this room and dodging his boss' delicately worded emails inquiring whether his aunt would recover or die soon, because “ _We really miss you here at the office!_ ”

His fingers fly mechanically over the keyboard, typing out even more robotic words to a clinically genial response to Rich, because no, Jared was not mistaken in his calculations for the 2020 Benedict file, thank you very much. Hitting Send is a vicious but pale satisfaction. He slumps in his seat, eyes little more than dead pits gazing at his computer screen. A yawn cracks his jaw. A check at the clock informs him he has three hours and fourteen more minutes of this.

Voices from the TV downstairs hums through the floorboards. He wonders what Jensen's watching and if he's enjoying it. Too many times Jared had found him with the volume up and staring off into space, blinking dumbly at the screen when Jared asked about the program playing onscreen. What Jared wouldn't give to crawl into Jensen's brain and know exactly what was going on in there, but he would have to settle for crawling into bed next to Jensen and cuddling him close, Jensen laying with him boneless and compliant. The television droning on and on, filling the silent spaces around and between them.

Jared never sleeps there. Maybe the occasional nap after making love, but never a deep, full night's rest. Jensen doesn't demand he leave, but neither does he encourage Jared to stay. Jared has a particular side of the bed yet his spine doesn't melt into the mattress quite right. Sleepy sated, his brain doesn't let him drift into unconsciousness. A niggling keeps him awake. His father's voice, maybe, reminding him _trust takes time_.

It had been a while since his boy had tried to run, but had it been enough time? Too many close calls in the beginning of wielded forks and bludgeoning objects. Jensen loves him -Jared knows this- but he isn't above violent mistakes. Jared still has to be cautious. Protect himself for the good of them both. That boundary still has to remain for both their sakes. Jared aches to cross it, break it, destroy it, set it on fire and sleep hand in hand like soul mates do.

Jared aches for so much more. He aches for the domestic bliss his parents had.

Even now as he sits here -ass and back going numb, pins and needles percolating down his legs and swarming in his feet- he aches. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting in this exact position, unmoving. Lost as he is in his wonderfully cruel thoughts. His boy just has that effect on him. A blink, and he becomes aware of the passage of time by the shadows creeping up the wall and eating away at the waning, amber light. His ears pick up the tail end of his phone ringing before it goes to voice mail. The urge to check it isn't there. Having it charged and near him is more of a habit than anything. The swollen silence the absent ringing leaves behind deepens the gnawing core of his aching.

The house looms large and empty around him. The majority of his day is only feeling alive underground.

This isn't what he imagined. This isn't what he wants for them. He has to fix this.

The next morning, he logs in to work long enough to have his presence noted then makes a trip to the hardware store. He works well into the evening, measuring and drilling and double checking his measurements. The vibrations of the power drill spreads up his arm and infects his outer extremities with a juttering excitement. He's tight-lipped under Jensen's questioning, doe eyes. Jared's mouth a bunching and twitching thing despite his best efforts to suppress his grin and give Jensen his surprise right now-now-now!

His restraint snaps in the predawn hours of the following day, having spent the previous night tossing and turning and daydreaming about how much more of the empty spaces Jensen is going to fill. By the time the sun crests the copse of trees in the east, the finishing touches to his preparations are a handful of Black-eyed Susans found poking through the ruinous bramble of weeds his mama's garden had become. A pleasant surprise and a sign of good things to come. The golden blooms sit proudly at the center of the table as a romantic touch. Satisfaction bubbles in him, even as he stoops down to double check the strength of yesterday's efforts.

Jensen is groggy and borderline unresponsive when Jared nudges him awake, freckled eyelids squeezing tighter shut. The irritable pout of his mouth too cute to resist. Through the press of lips, Jared can feel the whining grunt that starts in his boy's throat. His grin slips when Jensen turns away, rolling over and burying his face into his pillow.

Jared's clenching jaw eases at the lazy kicking away of covers, exposing the exquisite nakedness of Jensen's backside and the well-practiced arch of his hips, presenting his peach-round ass in the air. Basement cool air pricks at moon pale skin. Jared smooths his palm over the gooseflesh on offer. Middle and ring fingers dip between Jensen's cheeks to find his hole. Sticky and loose and well-loved. Jensen shudders but remains still like a good boy, and - _fuck_ \- Jared wants. But no, no, that can wait.

The undoing of the shackle around a slender, red-raw ankle isn't too out of the norm. Quite a few pieces of lingerie required to be pulled up Jensen's legs. Not immediately reattaching it after dressing him like a boneless doll, however, is.

When tiny, red shorts shimmy up narrow hips with no accompanying click of iron, Jensen finally lifts his head and fixes bleary eyes on him. It's a shame to cover him up, but the picture of his pillow-lined cheek and sleep-tousled hair and frowning confusion makes up for it. Jensen is always so adorably useless in the morning without his coffee.

Jared tries to coax him out of bed, but Jensen only lingers on the edge, bending and rolling his ankle every which way out in front of him, fascinated by the bare sight. Jensen rises in a distracted state, hands limp in Jared's hold. His shuffling feet obediently follow along.

Jared turns to dash up several steps -anticipation like a live wire under his skin- only to be halted by an immobile weight. Jensen is a gorgeous statue at the base of the stairs. His face blank. Every inch of him tense. He doesn't respond to Jared's gentle tugging and reassuring smile. His gaze studies that first step with mistrust.

“It's okay. I have a surprise for you. Come on.” Jared smiles, a little manic around the edges. Every urge in him is twitching to just yank the boy up the stairs instead of wasting time like this. What does Jensen have to be afraid of?

“I said, 'Come on.'” An impatient, warning squeeze travels between their locked hands. He feels it then: The tiniest pull of withdrawal through their connection. Although Jensen's hand remains swallowed up in his, the halted action is enough to grind his teeth and -worse- cast doubt.

Refusal doesn't exist between them. Is Jensen not ready? Are they not ready?

No. His head jerks like the thought was the passing buzz of an annoying fly.

“Jen...” His voice dips with censure. He's a head taller than Jensen, but from a few steps up, he towers like a skyscraper leaving his boy looking soft and small with only his shorts and collar on. Jensen's bare toes curl into dirty concrete. “Baby, don't make me tell you again.”

Another squeeze, harder this time.

No flinch, but pretty pink lips quiver. Through the thick fans of lashes, alert eyes flit from the stair to Jared but never rise any higher than his chest. It's tentative when Jensen slides onto the first step and stiffens from the resulting creak. The lean muscles of his chest and flat tummy contract under paper thin skin as if he expected the slab of wood was going to give under his weight and when that doesn't happen, watery green fly up in a panic to see Jared's reaction-- like this was a trap. A test of some sort, and Jensen's apparent worry unfurls something warm and gratified in Jared's chest. All sharp teeth and pride.

Jensen's seeking of his approval is as good as any declaration of love.

Jared's smile seems to put him at ease. A barely audible exhale shudders from Jensen's lungs. Morning breath stale. Jared stoops down to give him a peck on the mouth as reward.

The rest of the way up goes much smoother, though Jensen moves at a glacial pace. Wary green watches Jared's every move. With each wobbly step upward, increasing pressure presses back into Jared's fingers. A fine tremor of clammy hands. Morning rays pour in through the windows, filling the first floor with cool, pale light. It cuts across the floor in hazy swathes.

In the gloomy basement doorway, Jensen hesitates.

Jared's nostrils flare with a bitten back sigh. He supposes this is his fault. He only has himself to blame. He should have introduced Jensen to the rest of their home much sooner. That fact still doesn't staunch the wave of growing impatience spiking into fine-tipped frustration bisecting his shoulder blades. He forces his shoulders into a stiff roll to alleviate the sensation.

“Jensen...” grits out and that's all he needs to say. A terse warning. The sour turn to his mood making itself known.

It draws his boy over the threshold with skittish animal quickness and little fanfare. Instead of taking in his surroundings, Jensen only has eyes for him. So submissively sweet the building acidity inside Jared recedes.

For now.

“Come see your surprise.”

Jensen trails behind him with slow, ginger steps. His head on a swivel, peering around them as if the simple, country style design is an alien world. There's an interest alight in his wandering gaze Jared hasn't seen in a long time, darting from a glimpsed kitchen to noticeably vacant spaces where framed family photos were saved from gathering dust by Meg's fast claiming.

Jensen's legs falter, and Jared follows his line of sight to understand why. At the end of the hall the front door looms large and more worrisome than it has any right to be. Jared's stomach sinks the way Jensen stares. The all-consuming panic he felt the day he chased after Jensen and tackled him against that very door passes through him like a ghost. Cold and awful. His jaw firms, and he holds fast to Jensen's hand, dragging him sharply to the right, out of sight and to their destination.

Manila folders and his laptop are stacked off to the side and replaced with a breakfast spread. The walnut of the dining room table gleams goldenrod and paints Jensen's delicate features a warmer shade of passive. A flat stare traces the two place settings. Freshly-plucked, sunburst flowers seemingly wilt.

Jared's mouth is dry and the, “Ta-da” that comes out is a lopsided exclamation. He studies Jensen's profile. Nothing. More words rattle out of him to fill the unexpected hush. “I, uh, figured it's about time you see more of the house. I know me cooking is nothing new, but I thought-- Breakfast first, yeah? Are you hungry? Come sit.”

Jensen simply stands there. His hand rigid in Jared's. His eyes slide to the side to fleetingly meet his own. His fingers twitch before his mouth does.

“... no more basement?” Jensen doesn't talk much, and his rasp is so soft it muddles between curiosity and suspicion. Hopeful, maybe.

Jared's answering smile is crinkled, snagging the lines around his eyes and mouth. “As long as you're good.”

And his boy seems to accept those terms as his head tilts in an absent nod. A white fang worries his plump, bottom lip. The ensuing quiet is broken by a rumbling stomach. Jensen curls in on himself, startling a chuckle out of Jared. Hooking onto drawn shoulders, he guides his boy to his seat. A chair just to the right of the head of the table, his mama's seat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner growing up, because daddy liked to keep her close.

“Sit and eat first. I'll show you around after.”

Jensen eases into the chair with a mute creak. Just the mere sight is a last puzzle piece click satisfaction. Undeniably right and so wholesome it sets off molten flutters in his core and bubbles past his lips in a chatty stream.

“I wasn't sure what special dish to make, so I made a little of everything. Couldn't sleep I was so excited. This is nice, right? Go on, help yourself to whatever you want—I could barely hide the surprise last night. You could probably tell, huh?”

Mouth quirked in a self-deprecating sliver, he pauses his fretting and rearranging to catch Jensen's study of the faint wisps of steam rising from his waffles, painstakingly mixed and cooked a golden brown. He looks up with a molasses blink. No answer. The normalcy of the (lack of) reaction prompts Jared's huffed grin and helpless shrug as if Jensen had responded with a teasing remark.

“I know, I know, no poker face whatsoever, but I think I managed okay. You're surprised?”

Another blink accompanied by another stomach growl. Jensen's fingertips flirt with the table's edge while his plate sits untouched.

The coffee Jensen seems to prefer is a simple dark roast, black and piping. Jared pours him a cup, thinking the caffeine boost might perk up his sweetheart some. Perhaps match the level of energy thrumming through his own veins. The bloodless press of Jensen's fingertips flood with color as the cup is set down in from of him.

“This will be good for us. Just the change we need, don't you think—not that anything was bad before.”

On his way to his own seat, Jared can't resist caressing the bunched line of Jensen's shoulders, sliding off once he reaches the head of the table. His father's chair, reserved for the man of the house and that's Jared now, but he still can't quite relax in it, waiting for his father to come tearing into the room and kicking his ass out of it. Before said ass touches the seat though, he's leaping up. “Almost forgot.”

Jensen's questing fingers freeze around his mug as he watches Jared duck beneath the table. Little more than seconds pass before he's up again with a tinkling scrape. He doesn't turn to see what Jared has, poised and staring at the coffee halfway to his lips. Without a shirt, his back is a study of muscle anatomy, each standing out in stark relief. Skin smooth to the touch. Bedhead tangled hair curls soft down the back of his neck. Jared's fingers sift through it before brushing it aside.

When the mounted link of chain is attached to Jensen's collar with a click, the granite lines of Jensen's back dissolves into a slump. The cup in his hands very carefully returns to the tabletop, hands shrinking into fists and sinking to his lap, as Jared checks the lock is secure with a light tug.

“... change?” his boy croaks, the uptick of a question split into a jagged sound. When Jared moves around him, the faintest hint of a sneer ripples the pretty pink of his mouth. The interest alight in his eyes now all but extinguished. Placid green circling black pits reflect Jared's waning grin.

He's done something wrong, but he doesn't know what. With installing multiple chains and anchors throughout the house, they can spend all their time together now. Isn't that wonderful? Doesn't that make Jensen happy?

Jared doesn't ask these questions though, choosing instead to dig into his food. He knows the answers, dangling dark obscure around his concerned thoughts without needing to be given shape with exact words; the painful suggestion of them enough to keep his focus trained on his sloppy sawing and the forkfuls of food he shovels into his mouth. His waffles are a crude, mutilated mess doused with too much syrup. They disappear quickly. His stomach turns.

Furtive glances reveal Jensen doesn't eat.

 _Of course, he fucking doesn't._ An ugly snarl that lives in the pinching headache forming above his left eye. Jensen sullen and not eating rubs him wrong. It's square fucking one and they can't - **won't** \- go back to that. He stews on this as the stabbing tines of his fork squeaks against the plate. The sounds does little more than earn him a tight grimace from Jensen.

He had imagined the breakfast going so much differently. There should have been laughter and conversation and maybe, just maybe an ounce of gratitude. This is a big step for them. Jared had worked so hard just so they can have more normal. He forgets sometimes how difficult it is to please his boy, but Jared had hoped maybe for **once** \--

Fine. It's _fine_.

Jared doesn't realize he's swallowed his last bite and is instead savagely chewing on his own tongue. Biting the anger back. The taste of pennies, hot and thick. His jaw clicks sore.

This isn't right. Jared shouldn't have to feel this way. He's at a snapping point and doesn't like it. It usually ends in tears and Jensen jerking away from his touch, so he calms the torrential storm inside him the only way he knows how: Shoving back from his chair and bending Jensen over, pounding all of his frustration back into the source.

The bowl of scrambled eggs end up swiped to the floor so Jensen's face doesn't land in it. They were cold by now anyway. Each snap of his hips into Jensen soothes the burning behind his eyes. His mouth on fire. Droplets of it splatter and pool in the diamond dip of Jensen's spine. His chin sticky wet.

Fucking his boy in the clear light of day -breathing shallow to hear every muffled gasp below smeared into the damp bend of Jensen's elbow- is the cleansing they need. Flooding Jensen's insides washes away the dark spots this morning contained so far.

Jared's mood brightens. The biggest mess now is the spill of eggs across hardwood and the creamy, dreamy rivulets dripping hot down Jensen's thighs. Jared's fingers scoop the white globs up and alternates between pressing them back into Jensen's loose hole and reaching around and feeding them into his slack mouth, encountering the tiniest scrape of teeth. Jared does this well past the point of satisfied.

At least his boy has something in his stomach now.

:::

Hand in hand, Jensen limps along with him as Jared shows him the rest of the house. The younger man is mute beside him, but his interest has returned. Green eyes float around each room before inevitably landing on the length of chain coiled neatly on the floor. “It isn't much but it's home,” Jared tells him, but Jensen looks around himself like maybe he agrees and that's everything.

It's a new routine after that. Instead of a quick breakfast below ground before heading up to work, they start the morning together. He doesn't subject Jensen to the mind-numbing hours of his work, setting him up in the living room across the hall. There, he can gaze over his computer's glowing screen to watch his sweetheart whenever he wishes. Jensen reads, or at least he pretends to, trashy paperback novels Jared had found stacked in the bottom of his mother's bureau and had placed on the bookshelf just to fill some of the empty spaces. Jensen initially had perused the cracked spine titles with an arched brow before picking one and settling in the chair by the window. His usual spot, whether with a book open in his lap or the television murmuring in the corner or any room really, Jensen gravitates towards the windows. He stares out them. The flood of light paints hunted green irises a pale sage while carving delicate crinkles around his eyes. A contemplative, faraway look as his fingers idly twist the diamond sparkling at his throat. Jared worries perhaps he should have nailed the windows shut -just in case- but Jensen never reaches for them, hasn't even so much as breathed on the glass and love swells inside Jared with each instance.

As a treat, Jared one day bypasses their usual rooms and leads a bewildered Jensen to the front door. Jared's own nerves and apprehension are smothered by a bright show of teeth. If he thought coaxing the younger man out of the basement was tiresome, getting Jensen to step a foot outside the house is an exercise in patience; something Jared never really excelled at to begin with.

Between the shadowy interior and the sun-bleached porch, freckled skin is a pasty white. Sickly. Ghostly. Darkened hollows pool amidst skeletal edges. His boy stands immobile, inspecting the ratty sneakers on his feet; the very same shoes Jared brought him home in. It's not as if six inch heels would be appropriate for the outdoors. What if Jensen fell and twisted his ankle? (Although the idea of carrying him blushing bride devoted around the house shows a tantalizing appeal.)

Jensen looks down at those shoes now with a detached recognition.

“Don't you want some fresh air?” Jared tries again for the fifth time, and Jensen flinches from the breeze that ruffles his hair. Chapped lips purse. That same wariness at the top of the basement stairs calcifies Jensen's rigid frame. He's holding himself so severely, Jared fears if he pulls him by the hand, his arm might snap clear off. It's with that concern in mind, Jared's fingers ripple around the chain in his hand, reaffirming his grasp.

“Come on,” rides the nervous swipe of his tongue across his lips.

Jensen glows in the full glare of daylight. The sun-baked field around the house reflects and magnifies the brightness, forcing them both to squint. Jensen doesn't even move to shield his eyes, forcing green, green to absorb the overwhelming expanse of cloudless blue. He twists and he turns, taking in their sparse surroundings, shrinking under the weight of nothingness. His steps are a sloppy, distracted shuffle crunch-crunch-crunching across the dead grass. His wondrous gaze looks past Jared -through Jared- and sweat builds in the strangling hold Jared has on the chain swaying between them.

 _Not like a dog. Not like a dog._ He silently insists to himself, but the comparison is there all the same. He's on edge and he just— … doesn't fucking like it.

Lucky for him, his boy tires soon after they start. His already slow pace dwindles to a winded stagger. Once Jared mentions heading in, Jensen turns wet, beseeching eyes on him. A plea for just a little while longer, and Jared's so in love, he concedes. How could he not? It's a beautiful day for an even more beautiful boy, even if at any moment Jared fears he'll feel a sharp pull because Jensen's trying something silly like running away and that'll sting—

But Jensen hasn't, and Jared has to cling to that. Cling to that almost as much as he speeds up and clings to Jensen's hand as well as the crude leash. Aside from the fact Jensen isn't one for holding hands, the looks he darts at Jared is thawed with gratitude. That makes the high blood pressure worth it, and they amble along a little while longer.


	2. Part Two

The vanity has made its way upstairs into his childhood bedroom which has rapidly become his boy's closet. It's necessary with all the outfits Jared spoils him with.

From the doorway, he watches Jensen. A wrist flick and snowy particles cloud the air. Artificial peach warmth to Jensen's sallow cheeks, the cute tip of his nose. Painting his face is an idle, bordering on listless exercise. It lacks the showmanship it once exuded, but it all fascinates Jared just the same. The steady hand tracing a smoky black around each heavy-lidded eye. Strokes of mascara extending Jensen's lashes another mile. Scalpel-swift swipes of shimmery gloss. So careful yet lazy in his effort. A rote routine.

Moments like these Jared is keenly reminded he lives in a perpetual state of awe.

And that makes him want.

Jared sidles up behind him, hands settling on bare shoulders. The brush returning from its dip into a compact of champagne frost stutters for only a second before it sweeps along the high cuts of Jensen's cheeks. It's then that Jared's own reflection catches his eye and sticks there. Before he's always seen himself as a fairly good looking man -if a bit low maintenance with his shaggy hair in need of a trim and an erratic shaving schedule- but not necessarily hard on the eyes.

Now though... now with the harsh natural light flooding the room and his boy perched in front of him, all he sees is the chasm of age. Always objectively known, but a hit and run portent.

His fingers tingle where they rest on soft, soft skin. His heart crumples in his chest. So young and beautiful. The burning bright of Jensen's beauty glints off every errant strand of gray on Jared's head and throws shadows in the lines of Jared's face. So stark and disorienting that Jared feels monstrous-hungry-greedy. He roasts himself in Jensen's shine. It's better this way. Happier even, he thinks, despite his initial pause. Makes his pulse thump in a wonderful way instead.

He's the world's luckiest man.

With only a gentle pressure from his thumbs, the oddly fan-shaped brush is set aside and Jensen slides off the chair and onto his knees, his eyes downcast. Sooty lashes flutter within the purple bruises that live sunken and tender there. Jared knows there's a product he doesn't know the name of for that; Jensen would know, but Jared doesn't ask. It makes him worry Jensen isn't getting as good as sleep as Jared, and he can't think about that now, not with smudged finger prints marking up his thighs, skirting his growing bulge, and plucking at the strings of Jared's sweats.

By the time Jared's bucking through his orgasm, the insomnia dark of Jensen's under eyes are splattered black, covered up. Bled mascara from the persistent rut of Jared's hips and his cock striking that special, snug place at the back of Jensen's throat. His wet coughs kept to a flinching spasm with each gulp.

Jensen sinks back on his heels once every drop is sluicing down his esophagus and into his belly; Jared's fingers drag through damp, dirty blond until he's left cradling empty space. The spit drying on his dick plunges to ice from the sudden exposure. Jared shivers, putting it off to the last wracks of pleasure fading from his system. His eyes slide to the window as he tucks himself away, mouth a thin line. By the time, his gaze returns to Jensen, the younger man has climbed back into his chair and is dabbing a tissue over his swollen, ruddy lips. All of his previous efforts melted and smeared.

_Still gorgeous_ , Jared thinks, but when he cracks open the inexplicably rusted hinge of his jaw to tell him so, the sip of air needed snips his vocal chords like a cool blade and the urge to say anything dies. He doesn't know why.

Jensen keeps shooting him wary glances in the mirror as the tissue scrubs at the muddy trails down his cheeks, sensing something is off. Attuned to Jared, because he's wonderful that way and that reminder is enough to stitch up his throat just enough for the “Thank you” to croak out instead.

The balled up, gray tissue pauses its mechanical movements. Forest green stares up at him from splotchy, raccoon pits. Jensen's pinched lips part with no sound forthcoming. A different kind of silent. It chases Jared out of the room, mumbling about forgotten work.

Twisting the stone at his neck, Jensen's eyes follow him out and for days after. A speculative gleam -an awareness- inside them Jared chooses to ignore.

:::

Their outdoor walks grow longer with Jensen's growing endurance and his unfailing enthusiasm for it. A standing appointment he doesn't allow Jared to forget, hovering at the doorway to the dining room, his chain pulled taut across the hall, his shoes on with an expectant look on his face as soon as Jared's laptop folds shut. Jared can't be annoyed, not with the color Jared hasn't realized has been missing has returned to his boy's complexion and the pleased, absent grin that emerges in the sunlight.

Jared misses it terribly when it disappears back inside the house.

They traverse quiet, ever-expanding circuits around the property, although there's not much to look at. Jared never falters with his iron grip on the chain -eyes always monitoring the drive and the horizon even though the nearest neighbors and busiest roads aren't for acres- Jensen doesn't give him much reason to hang on as tightly as he does. Jensen doesn't pull or even reach for the chain. He'll eye it with barely suppressed disdain, but he's patient with each transition.

Well, until he isn't.

“Can't we go without it today?” Jensen's scratchy voice startles him from wrapping excess chain around his forearm before heading out. He's caught off guard. His mind had been elsewhere on missed phone calls and a voice mail full of his sister's meek voice.

Jensen's wearing more clothes for the outdoors. There isn't much for Jared's eyes to distract himself with, so he finds himself pinned under that gleam in Jensen's stare. It reminds him of those bugs stretched and pierced and put on display in glass cases.

“What--” He clears away the sudden webbing clogging his voice box. “Do you want to skip going out today?” Purposefully obtuse and Jensen knows it.

“I don't need a _leash_ \--” Jared doesn't flinch, but fuck. “-- you don't need to worry having to yank me back like a dog.”

And Jared -Jared could never- but if the time came he certainly _would_ , but it's for the best. They need the chain. It keeps Jensen safe, and when Jared opens his mouth to explain - _not a dog, not a dog_ \- Jensen tears his gaze away, his nostrils flared and lips disappearing into an exsanguinated seam. He refuses to say anything more to Jared, much less look at him for the entire trek, no matter how much Jared tries to get his boy to speak to him.

In the end, Jared decides to keep his distance. Thrown off balance. He's equal parts frustrated and confused and he reserves his glare for the steel links trailing from black leather and coiled snakelike up Jared's vascular arm.

It's later when he's matched Jensen's charged silence with a brooding quietude of his own, he can't take it any longer. With his arms buried in a sink full of dishes, he sets aside a sudsy cup with a clatter, turns and walks out. Soapy water pit-pats a trail from the kitchen into the living room where some game show blares whistles and cheering on the TV. Its flashing screen holds too much of Jensen's attention where he's crammed in the corner of the couch, his fingers in their customary position, twirling and twirling the rock on his collar.

He ignores Jared's presence until Jared snatches up the remote and stabs his thumb at the power button, throwing the screen into blackness and the remote tossed to the coffee table dripping suds. Hooded eyes slide to him and hover somewhere past Jared's left shoulder, not truly on him and it **grates**. It grates and grates and before he knows it, he's crouching down close and snaring Jensen by the chin. Jensen doesn't try to pull away, remaining pliant, as Jared's pruny fingers dig into soft flesh and the beginning grit of stubble.

Good, now all he can see is Jared and only Jared.

Toothy satisfaction doesn't come though. Being at the center of Jensen's universe doesn't mean anything if Jared doesn't know for sure— No, he knows. He just has to hear it from his boy's lips to be doubly sure. That's it.

“Are you happy with me?” he spits, but the words shutter and crumble once they leave his mouth. Exposed and gasping in the sliver of air between both men.

It isn't what he meant to say.

Jensen doesn't answer immediately. There's a flatness to his stare; Jared thinks of the aftermath of a raging inferno: Scorched earth, a lifeless husk with charred bones and ash remains with nothing left to salvage. It curdles his blood.

It's when plush lips part, Jared realizes with lightening bolt clarity that he's maybe not as sure of the answer he thought sixty seconds ago, and he's terrified because of it.

“... Of course, Jared.” Warm words slipping through cool marble.

“You'll never leave me?”

A flex of muscle beneath his fingers. “I can't, you know that.”

It's quiet out in the middle of nowhere without incessant television chatter. Deafening, uncannily enough. Jared's ears strain for more words, more reassurances, but he can hardly pick out Jensen's slow breaths beneath his own. They don't come anyway. Jensen's mouth remains shut. The grandfather clock announces a new hour in an arthritic groan; it divides this moment from the next, and to Jared, the conversation is neatly severed.

Whatever goal he had in mind by starting this line of questioning is done with, and the urgency he felt is dampened by Jensen's calm assurances. He isn't satisfied... nor dissatisfied. It is... enough. _Adequate_ is what he tells himself, sitting back on his heels. There's so much more he wants Jensen to say, but he knows it wouldn't be like Jensen to do so.

Jared lets go of Jensen's face and watches blood rush back into the pressure spots left white by his scarred fingertips. He doesn't say anything more and sure as fuck Jensen doesn't either. Knees popping, Jared rises to his feet with a creak. He's got dishes to finish, and Jensen will do whatever it is he does without Jared around. (The thought stings.)

It's a long while as he stands, arms braced over the kitchen sink, before he hears the TV click back on down the hall. It's then he lets out the breath he'd been holding and reaches for the tap.

:::

“ _Hey, it's me—again. Your sister. I guess you're busy still. I'm just calling to check on you. It's been so long. Are you doing okay? Not just with the divorce— I've... We've all been trying to give you your space, but... Jared, this isn't like you to cut yourself off from everyone. I hate that you're out there in that house by yourself. Bev and Colin have been asking about you. Colin wants to know if his Uncle Jared will be there for his birthday. It's Saturday. I told him I'd call and remind you. I hope you'll come... Please come? We miss you. I miss my brother. You know you can talk to me— just... call me back, okay?”_

Guilt bites and chews at him long enough for his thumb to swipe across his phone screen and the voice mail is gone. Deleted with the rest. It's a bruise ache he tucks away at the back of his mind. Jared loves his family. He does. His siblings and his little niece and nephew whom he just adores. Warm points of lights he reached for, but that was before he found the sun.

Jared loves and misses his family but... _Jensen_. Meg would understand if she knew.

The missed holidays and events don't seem all that important. Some day, maybe. Things will be better by then.

He promises himself he'll carve some time in the day to give his sister a call or at least shoot a text, but the consideration is enough for the whole chore to be dismissed in his mind. It's the thought that counts. He'll get around to it eventually, but for now sending a present to his nephew would have to suffice. What is he, ten now?

As he's opening a new tab to search for a suitable gift, blurry movement beyond his computer screen catches his attention. He diverts his eyes, pretending overpriced toys are far more interesting.

“Not today, Jen.”

Standing in his customary spot, Jensen is waiting with his shoes on and expectation bouncing in the balls of his feet. He stills though at Jared's statement.

Keeping his eyes trained on his computer rather than his boy's stony expression is a struggle. His hackles rise. Skin prickles with the seeming drop in temperature radiating from across the hall. He will not look though, because if he looks, he'll give in and that -for the moment- that is something he can not do.

They hadn't spoken beyond last night. Jared had stayed in the kitchen long past cleaning up dinner -not hiding- until it was late enough that it only made sense to reenter the living room and casually shut the television off. Jensen, blank-faced, wordlessly joined him upstairs. The younger man kept to his side of the bed, and Jared didn't reach for him.

It's not a fight. They don't fight, ever. It's just... odd. A strange tension he doesn't know whether to ignore or attempt to dissipate.

For now, Jared ducks his head and chooses to ignore. All the while he can sense his boy's mounting agitation. Twin holes burning into the top of his scalp. He hunches lower and tries not to think about the fact he's a grown man hiding behind a fourteen-inch screen, poorly. Still, Jensen doesn't go. Stubborn-rooted and that's not -Jared's hand over his touch pad curls into a fist- not like his Jen.

Jared doesn't recall his parents ever being like this. It wasn't ever _weird_ like this. Weird, because he can't quite put his finger on it, and he can't put it into better words and that just—

White hot fury zings through him -bursts in his temples- and his hand slams down onto the table with a bang and rattle. “Damn it, I said not today!”

Shattered silence reassembles itself into something thicker and heavier and sour on his tongue. As quick as his anger had come, it recedes. As powerful as it was, it leaves him shaky. The glare he leveled at the younger man darts away from sonic flare green. It burns and Jared withers. Color flees from the tight line of Jensen's mouth and into his cheeks. His fists shake at his sides, bunching the clinging material of his shorts. Jared has the fleeting lament of too much coverage before his boy snaps, spinning on his heel and storming back into the living room and out of sight.

For a moment, there's nothing. Jared's ears strain to only pick up rustling. He jumps in his seat when one right after the other, Jensen's sneakers sail through the air and crash into the bookcase then topple to the floor with a **smack-smack**! The TV clicks on, and its normal volume rises to a chaotic roar. Teeth-gritting. A headache already blossoms behind the minute twitching of his left eyelid.

His sits back, leg jiggling, as he lets the noise pelt him. Air puffs through his flared nostrils. His eyes drill into the thinnest crack stemming from behind the baseboard and creeping up the wall like a crooked grin—mocking him. Fingers drum on the tabletop where his palm tingles from the impact. Some obnoxious commercial advertising lumber liquidators shouts _“Ten percent off a two hundred fifty plus selection of floors plus -plus!- professional installation, but wait, there's more!”_

Jared's patience goes rubber band snap. The laptop claps shut, and the chair topples over when he surges to his feet.

Jensen is not camped out in front of the television like Jared expects him to be. Instead, he cuts a silhouette in front of the window broadcasting cornflower blue skies and sunshine. He doesn't turn at Jared's heavy footfalls, doesn't do more than stiffen when all the sound gets sucked out of the room with the TV being muted. There's expectation in how rigid he holds himself, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as his shoulder blades span and poke sharply beneath the thin material of his shirt.

Jared takes in the off-white and care worn top: It's one of Jared's. Hazel eyes flit to where there's a hole near the neck, and he knows just as well on the other side is a crackled, red yield sign with faded black lettering. Pearl Jam's '98 Yield Tour. Jeff had taken him after much begging, and it's where he smoked his first joint which his big brother had always laughingly insisted the chick passed him a clove cigarette. It's mystifying to see it on Jensen now. It gives him pause. The shirt swallows Jensen up, and Jared's ire wanes. Where it's always fit snug on him, on Jensen it drapes girlfriend loose.

Jared almost forgets why he marched in here.

Whatever Jensen is expecting of him, he isn't going to wait for it. He whirls around, all red face and raging ferocity.

“You think after all this time that I'm gonna run away? As if I could?!” His shouts cracks, and the suddenness of it sets Jared back. “I never ask anything from you. I-I-I didn't ask for **any** of this!”

Last night's mascara bleeds gray rivulets, and -fuck- Jared is hypnotized by the swell of angry tears bubbling over his lash lines; they gather into the jagged lines of Jensen's scowl.

“You may think it's nothing but you don't—you don't get to take this from me.” As soon as he spits the words out, he deflates, those harsh lines filling with little boy loss and his incendiary glare falls to his socked feet. “... You've taken everything else. You can't take this.”

Jared wants -no, he needs- to reach for him and hush all the foolish words spewing from his pillow lips, but narrowed eyes rise back on him and he hears the pitched low, “I'm not letting you.” A shot of iron seemingly flows through his boy, tensing his limbs, squaring his shoulders, and hardening his jaw.

“You take and you take and you take—fucking take from me. What—” Jensen's arms fling out in entreaty. The green of his irises practically glowing. “What more is there? What more do you want? What?!”

Jared's mouth moves like a goldfish's. A dial up modem for a brain. It's instinct that has him staggering back when Jensen stalks towards him, backing him up until the backs of his calves brush the couch.

“I've been good. Haven't I been a good boy, Jared?”

Jensen's height barely clears Jared's chin, but when his hands shove at Jared's chest, Jared trips back and lands on the couch without resistance. Noodle-limbed and baffled. He watches with wide eyes as Jensen stares murder down at him. He doesn't know this side of Jensen. His heaving chest rising and falling with air hissing through his bared teeth. Violent pink splotches splash across his cheeks and drips down his neck.

It's at this moment Jared realizes as perplexed as he is, he's also painfully hard.

“What? Fucking say something!”

… Except there's so much more Jared would rather **do** instead. His hands are up and reaching -gimme, gimme!- like a child's before he consciously decides to do so. He's beside himself when his hands fall, stinging, from Jensen smacking them away.

A snarled “Of course,” and pain shoots through his forearms as the younger man drops down onto his lap. Bony knees dig into the hollows of his elbows, Jensen's legs effectively pinning Jared's arms to the couch. Jensen mashes his lithe body close, and the sudden pressure on Jared's cock has him jerking with an exhale. The oxygen gets stolen from his lungs by cruel, biting kisses. Fingers scrabble and pull at the neck of his shirt, stretching the fabric and popping threads. Nails prick at the exposed ridge of his clavicle as Jensen presses Jared back into the couch while Jensen simultaneously tries to crawl into him.

This is what distills Jared's greed, and it becomes so clear to him: Every perfect inch of Jensen's front is glued to him without space for air and still, Jared wants more.

And Jensen knows him so well that, along with the collar around Jensen's flushed neck, Jared is thinking about shopping for rings.

Jensen tears at the tie of Jared's sweatpants, freeing his erection with relief and little fanfare. His dick pokes and rolls between their stomachs but goes ignored. Jared's pinned arms twitch to touch himself properly -just a little- but the ache from Jensen's pressing legs sharpens as he lifts up, wrestling to get out of his shorts. After much twisting -Jared's bones grinding into numbness- and a huff, Jensen gives up, shooting him a look like his lack of success is Jared's fault.

Instinctively, Jared knows not to dare move or react for fear what he thinks is happening will stop; he doesn't even risk reacting to Jensen sucking his own fingers wet and watching them disappear behind himself. Jensen's hard expression scarcely flickers as he opens himself up. Jared's dick throbs with every barely stifled hitch of breath and twitch of skinny hips, and a groan rumbles in the confines of his chest. Too loud for Jensen, if the pointed glare that skewers him further into the couch is anything to go by.

With a flare of his nostrils, Jensen shifts enough to free one of Jared's arms. Through the static of returned circulation, Jared hears the instructions to “Get your dick wet.” One order he does not need to be told twice. Jared's tongue drags sandpaper across his palm -too dry- but eagerness to relieve some of the tension thrumming through him wins out, and his hand plunges down to his lap.

“That's enough.”

The one hurried pull he manages somehow only makes his need worse as his hand gets pushed away, leaving his dick jutting sticky and leaking between them. On any other day, Jared would react with a snarl, flip his boy over and pound his ass loose, but now he can barely muster a sneer -pliant- as he watches with love in his eyes as Jensen stretches the leg of his shorts and angles Jared's cock into the dark space until the tip kisses sponge-soft against wet, puckered flesh.

It's too tight and not slick enough. It even hurts a little when Jensen corkscrews down his length, his handsome face twisted with a feral determination glinting in his eyes. Little hisses slicing through his every breath.

And poor Jared. His heart threatens to choke him.

Jensen fucks him just like that.

Not even giving himself a moment to adjust, he slams up and down onto Jared's cock. Savage yet mechanical. Like a punishment. He bites curses into Jared's neck. Stinging bites that ratchets pleasure just that much higher. Enraged, muffled words he smears into the humid dip beneath Jared's ear. Unimportant words.

Jared's head flops back, lost in the heat of Jensen roughly taking him in. Jensen's rhythm stutters and stills with a small cry. That special spot. He immediately resumes his pace with concentrated downward thrusts, impaling himself in short jabs. Somehow he plasters himself closer, grasping onto Jared's shoulders and grinding his dick tightly to Jared's stomach. The wrathful energy from before has shifted into something desperate. The venomous lashing of teeth and tongue gives way to little hurt sounds fluttering against Jared's pulse like kisses. Jared feels brave enough to wrap his arms around him, planting his feet and thrusting upward. The motion earns him a broken whine and frenzied humping. Delicious squeezing around his cock and raw lips mouthing at his throat.

They don't come together, but it's close enough Jared is feeling romantic. Jensen nearly vibrates off his lap with a wounded keen, liquid heat spreading between them and seeping through Jared's shirt. Jared's own release rides on the tail-end of Jensen's, just as his boy slumps like his strings have been cut. Jared holds him closer while Jensen clings to him. Like Jared is his everything and he couldn't bear to let go. A bliss that has him melting into the cushions, content to never move from this spot.

As he's coming down, he realizes Jensen is still on him like a limpet. His face buried in Jared's chest. Faint, hitching sobs drift up to his ears. The serrated curve of his spine shudders under the unsure rub of Jared's palm. Jared sinks, melds around him, tucking his face against the red of Jensen's ear. Mouth tight and nose breathing in the warm scent of his hair.

They sit like that until he feels himself get soft enough to slip out of Jensen. Jared gives another fruitless squeeze. A nuzzle to the crown of his boy's head. “Let's get cleaned up, and we'll go outside.”

Jensen's cries dwindle to a weak sniffle. He draws back enough to fix glittering, bloodshot eyes on Jared. A wet intake of breath isn't followed by the, “ _Really_ ” clearly waiting to be asked. Instead, frown lines -Jared knows better than to call cute- appear between his eyebrows. He's silent, save for the errant hiccup of breath.

Jared's eyes cross when, with a lean forward, Jensen presses tear-sticky lips to Jared's own. Soft and wonderful and over far too soon. Jensen pulls back, eyes averted, with a congested sniff. Jared would love nothing more than to reel him back in, but sense tells him to let the boy climb off and stand on wobbly legs. The small, uncertain ghost of a smile Jensen gives tells him he did something right.

:::

Nothing confirms that more than when he's roused from sleep the next morning by lips trailing up his shoulder and across his chest. Kisses falling warm and light like summer rain. His eyes still glued shut from sleep, he frowns. Brain muzzy and slow to waking. His skin tingles, unused to the affection. Foreign to him, but he craves for more. But if he moves, it might stop. If he opens his eyes, he might wake and it might not be real. He already feels bereft each agonizing jump from one kiss to the next.

Sleep-rough words press against the flesh above his heart, skipping a beat and igniting goosebumps. “I know you're awake. I'm hungry.” Quiet yet demanding.

The utter disconnect -those actions, that statement, this person- causes his eyes to spring open yet lo and behold, there Jensen is hovering rumpled soft above him, glowing in the clean, dawn light.

Jared must be dreaming then. Jensen is never hungry, nor does he ask for food. Jared also remembers with a pang, Jensen doesn't reach for him, much less kiss him awake. He's shy that way.

Jared doesn't move or react, terrified the scene will dissolve around him and he'll wake to a cold morning with a freckled back turned to him.

Heavy eyelids drooping over green recede back into his skull under the hanging silence. Jensen's spine straightens as he scoots back, putting terrible space between them. Sheets draw tight around him. He looks away. When he speaks, his voice is just as low but clearer, more awake and approaching contrite.

“I shouldn't have woken you up. I'm sorry. You—” Lips snap shut like there's more he wants to say, and Jared almost throws himself at the bedding bunched over his boy's lap and begs to hear whatever it is, because he's starting to believe this is real and anything from Jensen is good. So good. But Jensen's mouth remains sealed. His gaze refuses to meet his own. It's then that Jared understands.

Yesterday they had simply cleaned up and gone outside, as promised. Jensen's legs were too shaky to walk so they had settled on the front steps in silence, Jensen squirming and grimacing on the rickety wood all the while. Not more than a few nothing exchanges through dinner, a movie Jared sat through but doesn't recall the details of, then off to bed.

Though they hadn't spoken about it, Jared was more than content to leave it in post-coital bliss rather than the venomous words Jensen said that are still pooling in the back of Jared's mind. Jensen was angry. We all say things we don't mean when we're stressed. He didn't mean any of it. They had made love; Jensen had smiled and kissed him. Actions speak louder than words, Jared keeps telling himself. They really did not need to linger on it. Jared insists on it.

They're fine—happy. Happier than his parents. Hiccups happen. Jared must be doing something wrong if his sweet boy can't see that, sitting there like he expects to be punished.

Jared sits up too fast, because Jensen flinches and his head dips lower between hunched shoulders. He ignores this. His arms scoop up the bundle of boy and blanket and perches him, unmoving, on his lap. He smells of sweat and fresh linens. The position reminds Jared too much of yesterday's encounter. Half hard morning wood twitches.

“How about pancakes?”

The following seconds without answer drag tortuously. Jared focuses on the feel of drying patches of skin where perfect lips just were and tries not to hold Jensen too tightly. If Jensen retreats from him now, Jared doesn't know what he'll do. Like Jared can't take away those outdoor walks, Jensen can't take away this drug-like hit of affection from him.

If he does, Jared fears it might be best if his boy returns to the basement for a little while. And just thinking about the separation tears at him.

“... with chocolate chips?” comes in a tiny breath.

Tension rushes from him as a smile breaks out across his face. Like relief. Feels more like winning. Conquering another hurdle. He nods eagerly. “Of course, sweetheart, whatever you want.”

The boy balled in his lap shifts suddenly. Elusive viridian pierces him. A pinned bug again. Pupils flit as if reading one of those beat up romance novels downstairs. Jared lets him. He simply revels under the attention. His heart howls at a sliver of teeth, a not quite smile but enough of one.


	3. Part Three

The few days following proceed to be the best in Jared's life.

The sudden change in Jensen's attitude is enough to drive everything else out of his mind and into the periphery. Clocking into works doesn't seem so important. His cell rings incessantly from another room until he shuts the damn thing off and hides it far away from Jensen's curious eyes. Then— _then_ his boy only has eyes for him, and it's different compared to before. Better. So much better. It's like Jensen **sees** him now. Truly sees the love between them -how special it is- and reflects it back. Two-way glass gazes except now Jared can feel someone on the other side.

Jensen has little crinkles around his eyes when he smiles.

His rasping voice honeys with use. Small, inane comments about the weather or whatever program is on the TV. Jared treasures them as gospel. Inconsequential demands to open the windows to catch the breeze or have this, not that, for dinner. Jared jumps to accommodate, anything to be on the receiving end of those pleased grins. Casual, idle words that shouldn't mean so much but do. Jared's ears have been empty for so long.

He doesn't realize just how much he's been starving until the scraps of Jensen's love he's been surviving off of grow into full-sized meals. Automatic reciprocation rolls easier off Jensen's tongue as smoothly as he presses into Jared's side and draws Jared's hand into his lap, mindlessly tracing the bones of his fingers. (Too often Jensen ends up riding the bolts of his knuckles until he's sobbing into Jared's chest and ruining the nice panties Jared provides him.)

Little smatters of affection Jared soaks up like a plant denied water or the sun. He knows now he would die without it.

“What are you thinking for lunch?”

Jensen's gaze doesn't so much as flicker from the screen. There is little one could do to pull his rapt attention from a new movie, especially this one with its many exotic locations displaying a hypnotizing universe of color compared to their little, washed out piece of country. Jealously rumbles, and it's all Jared can do to not take him by that slack, baby pink mouth.

“Jen?” he tries again, this time with a small nudge. His boy starts but doesn't look away from the film. The answering hum can barely be discerned from the explosion on screen feet away. The brush off plucks at a tendon in Jared's jaw. He's just trying to keep his Jensen happy, so he prods again.

“Jen, lunch. You hungry?”

A scowl wrenches Jensen's face -green glare flashing- before he stills. In a blink and flare of his nostrils, his gritted teeth eases and curve into a bright smile. A terse levity to his voice.

“What did you say? Sorry, this is just a good movie.”

Jared blames the television's seizure-inducing flickers on distorting Jensen's delicate features. He puts it out of his mind, instead reaching for the remote to pause the cinematic chaos. “Lunch. What do you have a taste for?”

Cool fingers curl around Jared's wrist. An eager tap-tap-tap against his pulse. “Um, what- whatever you want, Jay.”

“Sandwiches it is. I'll be back in a bit.” As he rises to stand, chain links clatter and the fingers around his wrist hold him back.

“Maybe I could come help you.”

“It's okay. You keep watching the movie.” But the vice grip on his wrist persists. Another tap-tap-tap. Jensen balances on the edge of the couch cushion, ready to hop to his feet.

“But— but you're always doing the cooking. I wanna help.”

The thought is a touching one. Jared's mind gets flooded with sweetly domestic images of preparing meals together they would subsequently share. Playful food fights starting with a splat of flour mingling with the smattering of freckles across the bridge of Jensen's nose and ending with a trail of food-grubby clothes and sloppy kisses under hot shower spray. Moving together like a finely choreographed dance bred of familiarity.

Jared wants and wants that, but fuck if he doesn't know better.

With a regretful sigh, he slides Jensen's hand off and tucks it into his boy's lap, his own large hand coming up to swallow the side of Jensen's head. “I would love for you to help -and some day you will- but... I don't think we're ready for you to be around knives—or any sharp objects for that matter. You understand, don't you?”

The pleading glint in Jensen's eyes dulls. He deflates but dutifully nods nevertheless. “Yeah... yeah, you're right. I'll just... be here then.”

The smile he offers Jared is weak, doing little to distract from his slump into the couch's dip, his fingers stiff and riding the bumps of chain draped beside him. Downcast green eventually finds their way back to the TV, and Jared knows he's been dismissed.

By the time Jared returns, his boy is back to being all warm and cuddly. And later, when their heart rates are coming down and their sweat is cooling above the covers, Jensen tucks himself tight against his side. Soft puffs of breath grazing his nipple and sending shivers rippling through him. He should probably get up and find something to clean Jensen and himself off with, but the line of heat pressed against him and the urgency of Jensen's enthusiasm demanded makes moving from this exact spot wholly unappealing. Eyelids drooping and breath slowing, sleep tugs at him.

Until there's a tap-tap-tap dancing up his ribs, and Jensen's fingers tangle with his chest hair. Light scratches that have him teetering on the very edge of coherence.

“You awake?” whispers in the dark, rousing him just enough to startle a grunt from the base of his throat. Ears open but eyes inevitably falling shut. Jensen's youth shows in just how alert he sounds and while Jared could quite happily pass out now, he could be persuaded into another round. Jared's hand raises from where it slipped hooked around the jut of Jensen's hip. Thumb traces bone.

“... Jay” -and God, that pet name tingles all over- “This... this isn't normal. You know that, right?”

His thumb stutters to a halt.

“People in love don't do this to each other. I mean, did your dad chain your mom down?”

Eyes snap open. Momentarily, revulsion replaces the air in his lungs. Never would his father had done that to his mama. He loved her endlessly and earnestly. Only sometimes when he got a little twitchy or her a little jumpy did his father flick the bolts on the doors.

Jared loves Jensen even more endlessly and earnestly; the real difference here is Jensen was too jumpy for too long. He needed— he **needs** an anchor. Jensen tried to run. His mama never wanted to leave, especially when Jeff, Jared, and sweet, little Meg came along. There's a difference.

He and Jensen are special circumstances.

Jared doesn't deign that ridiculous question with a response. At least not a verbal one. The hand petting the soft skin stretched around Jensen's hip steels into a clamp.

The darkness in their bedroom emboldens Jensen, in spite of the bear trap latched onto him. If anything, he plasters himself sticky humid closer. His lips press words into Jared's pec.

“So you see we can't be us— this can't be real with _this_.” The chains snaking off the bed jangles. “Just—” he grits out. The shadowy blur of him hovers over Jared until Jared's silence gains weight heavy enough Jensen wilts, melting back against him.

“... Just think about it. Please.”

Jared doesn't answer. He tries not to think about it, but he does. The slumber he was so close to alludes him long after the boy snoring lightly beside him drifts off to sleep. The moon can't breach the clouds tonight, so his stare at the ceiling floats in a black void. In his head he hears shouts of Not Normal-Not Real-Not Right with every micro movement Jensen unconsciously makes. The only other sound clogging his ears is the chain links scraping against the floorboards and hissing along the sheets. The unavoidable noise had never really bothered him before. Now it keeps him up all night.

He tries not to think about what Jensen said, but he does.

:::

“I just don't understand why I have to be down here. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all. I told you, it's for a surprise.”

The stink of mold hangs heavy in the air, stronger than it ever has or maybe perhaps it's been so long since they've been down here and he had simply gotten used to it before. Either way, he won't be gone for long.

A well practiced lock click, and Jensen sinks down onto the bed he hasn't seen for months. His expression grim and cutely confused. Jared's stomach flutters with anticipation.

He glances around the basement to make sure his boy has everything he needs while Jared's away running errands. Jensen could easily wait in any other room in the house -somewhere not so dark and dank- but Jared wants to make a grand gesture: Soft music, candles on every available surface, with chilled champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Never before had he wanted to expend this much effort for anyone; not even proposing to his ex-wife involved this much romance. All that mattered to her was a fancy enough restaurant and a big enough to rock to make her friends green with envy.

But this... this is Jensen, and Jared isn't planning on a rock. That already dangles at Jensen's pretty throat. No, Jared has been thinking along the lines of a key.

He can already imagine how quickly starry-eyed delight will replace Jensen's tight frown when Jared presents him with the key to his lock. This is their house, and now they can truly enjoy it as such. Like married couples do. Like his parents did.

Of course Jensen will keep his collar on; it's a wedding band in its own right. The doors and windows will keep their locks, but Jensen could go to the bathroom whenever he likes without Jared waiting outside the door (they'll get rid of the door, just in case) but Jensen will be so pleased.

“I shouldn't be gone more than an hour.” His fingers sift through silky hair -petting, soothing- yet his boy refuses to look at him. It hurts. Normally, Jared would push, but Jensen just doesn't understand yet. He will soon, and Jared can't wait. He's almost vibrating with it.

“I brought down a couple of outfits for you. I'm partial to the pale, sparkly one, but you'll look amazing in whichever one you choose. You always do. Tonight is going to be special. You're gonna love it.”

Jensen's jaw is smooth and hard as marble, unyielding to the cradle of Jared's hands. Jade eyes reluctantly meet hazel.

“I promise you will.”

He feels the small nod better than he sees it. The motion removes his cherubic face from Jared's hold. Another sting Jared tamps down with the knowledge of the evening to come. He stoops down and plants a firm kiss to Jensen's pinched brow. He murmurs, “See you in a bit.”

As he pulls away, a desperate touch catches him by the shirt. Jensen's shuttered expression cracks, his lips twisting and gazing worriedly up at him.

“I can come back upstairs when you get back?”

Jared's thumb smooths at the bunched lines across Jensen's forehead. Greedy warmth licks at his insides. He could purr for that sinfully needy look. “Of course, darlin'. Right after I get everything set up. You just wait patiently and get yourself all prettied up while I'm gone okay?”

“Okay,” his good boy agrees quickly, bobbing his head and Jared almost forgets about going if this stunning creature is going to look up at him like this. Like the sun. Like a god.

“I love you,” bursts from Jared then, humbled for it. Makes him a little sweaty, a little feverish when he's struck by the depths of love he has for this perfect boy.

_And he's mine. All mine._  
  
Before he abandons his grand plans and crawls into bed with Jensen proper, he forces himself back a step and another step. Another and another until the stairs are knocking his heels.

“Don't be gone too long.” Jensen's demand rusts and sputters apart into a strained plea. Jared's grin splits a line between reassuring and lofty. Giddy and wanted.

Curled up small in the middle of the mattress, Jensen watches him climb the stairs, his slender fingers twirling-twirling-twirling the crystal hanging from his neck. Its spinning prism catches the slice of sun cutting through the window, throwing rainbow sparks around the room.

A picture of heaven on Earth, and Jared floats on a cloud out to the car.

:::

The trip takes him slightly longer than anticipated. The few items on his list had snowballed. Admittedly, he had let his eagerness off the leash and in so doing so, splurged. The trunk as well as the backseat are packed with bags comprised of all the proper trappings of a night of romance with a few special items found at a small, nondescript store carrying merchandise of the more... adventurous variety, not too unlike the shop he found Jensen in.

He hopes Jensen likes the jewel-encrusted plug he got him. Jared is already salivating over the tiny clamps sure to make his nipples all red and puffy and prime for Jared's mouth to land.

Daydreaming of the night to come, his attention on the road goes on autopilot, made easier once he turns off the highway and onto familiar, country back roads. The sun shining, Eddie Vedder crooning about “Future Days” gets swept away by the wind whipping through the open windows. Fingers tapping to the beat on the steering wheel as his mouth curls in absent contentment. He can feel the utter perfection of the day take shape around him.

It's as he's rumbling up the narrow strip of gravel driveway leading up to his family's home, he almost doesn't notice the strange car sitting in front of the house.

He blinks, his foot lifting off the gas.

Then realization clicks in his brain. He knows that car and its damning stick figure family bumper sticker. Megan's car.

His gaze snags on the house's open front door. The smile tugging his lips freezes and plummets to his stomach, its teeth chomping-chomping at his nerves and guts. He could choke on the surge of alarm that courses through him. His foot stomps down on the accelerator, and his car tears down the remaining drive, hands sweating strangle-tight on the wheel.

Tires screech to a fishtail halt and kick up a cloud of dust. He barely throws it in Park before he's falling out of the vehicle. Hands claw and scrabble -cutting themselves- across gravel until he finds his legs under him. They eat up the remaining distance. His feeble hopes that maybe the front door being open is a trick of the light and his sister is here but sitting patiently in her car are dashed as the driver's seat is mockingly vacant. He doesn't dwell on it, sprinting into the house.

The transition from outside to in is like plunging underwater: Darker, colder, his heart pounds in his ears. All he can focus on is Jensen.

The entry way is empty.

_Jensen. Jensen._

As well as the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

_Jensen._

He doesn't dare call out in fear his voice wouldn't project as more than a gasping croak. The door to the basement stands open, and he stops short, knowing his habit of keeping it closed.

_Jensen._

His steps thunder down the creaking stairs, his stomach in his throat. Pain splatters across his shoulder as the wall of the landing ceases his momentum. Eyes wide in alarm, he thinks maybe he hit his head, too.

_Jensen._

His sister is standing a step off the landing like she had just made her way down here and couldn't move a step further. Her shoulders are drawn and her spine is stiff like a spooked cat's.

_She grew her hair out_ , he notices in a hysterical daze.

The ruckus of his arrival only garners the attention of the half-naked boy across the room, but only for a glancing moment before glassy green darts back to their unexpected visitor. Water droplets sluice from freshly washed hair and trail down, down, down to the dingy towel held white-knuckled at Jensen's hips. Frail and gorgeous, and so, so still.

Stunned, Jensen blinks fever bright eyes at Meg like he can't quite believe she's here. She's here in front of him and she's real.

Then pale, quivering lips split open paper cut thin and out trembles a brittle, “Help me.”

Meg lets out a horrified gasp, and time... time smears like watercolor around Jared, and he's absolutely helpless to stop it.

Feet made of lead, he can't move as Meg rushes to Jensen's side. The bed's comforter fans through the air and tucks around quaking shoulders. Jared's jaw clenches and his feeble, “Don't touch him” gets lost under Meg's shrill “What the fuck—Jared, what the fuck—who the fuck is—you're okay, it's gonna be okay. Can you tell me your name?”

Then... it, um... Jared doesn't like to think about what happens next, seared into his brain as it is.

Meg says a lot of things that get lost into the vacuum his ears have become. Shouted questions about if this is where he's been all this time, how could you—and stay the hell back, don't come any closer, I swear to God.

Jared thinks many things. He has to run, take Jensen and run, because Meg's panicky gestures and the cell phone in her hand tells him she's going to take his boy away from him like she has any right to.

Or... or he could... quiet her down a bit. She's being hysterical, _unreasonable_ , and Jared is bigger after all. It could be quick. Jared could almost make it like she was never here. No one else would have to know, just him and Jensen. Forever and always just the two of them.

But Jared has to remind himself the apple cheeked, waif of a woman blocking him from Jensen and spitting nails at him is his baby sister. Jared could never, so he stands there, dead-limbed, while he watches his world bundled up in a blanket slip from him.

_Jensen... Jensen..._

Her tear-ravaged face crumples. He might have spoken that aloud. A tortured sob leaves her. “... I **prayed** you wouldn't end up like him.”

Like Daddy.

Jared's legs buckle. Kneecaps crack on cement. He doesn't feel it. Can't. The pain's deeper, elsewhere—and it's safer if he just looks at Jensen. Better. It helps. His beautiful, beautiful boy.

And Jensen... Perched on the bed with his palms mashed against his eye sockets, Jensen doesn't look back.

It's a whirlwind of sirens and red and blue lights staining his retinas after that. Meg screaming down here, they're down here and more shouting, this time from the boys in blue to put his hands on his head while more charge towards Jensen.

Jared yells for them to get away from him, don't fucking touch him—A knee slams into his back and he's coughing into the cement while his arms get wrenched behind him. The bite of handcuffs around his wrists. His eyesight narrows into a fine point -Jensen's stricken face- as he's dragged kicking and screaming up the stairs.

“Jensen!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with so far! Only two more chapters left, and the comments and kudos have really meant everything to me! <3


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All proceedings in this chapter is what I've gleaned from television and film. I'm sure it's not accurate, but hopefully my mistakes won't be so glaring I ruin any suspension of belief. Also, thank you again for all of the support!

A holding cell.

A mirrored room with a cold table and disgusted glares. Barbed insults for hours without end. It's okay though. He just needs to speak to Jensen.

Can he please, please speak to Jensen?

One of the grim-faced officers who's remained tucked in the corner for most of this time shifts his weight and rolls his shoulders as if bugs are crawling on him. His dark eyes piercing under the sickly yellow lights.

“For the last time, it ain't gonna happen, so why don't you stop asking and answer some of our questions instead.”

“Yeah,” another one chortles. This one had offered him water once. “Haven't you heard the saying if you love something, let it go?” He shoots his colleague a shit-eating grin, but the other man remains unamused.

Hearing this, Jared stares down at the metallic surface of the table, his brows drawn. His reflection is an indistinct blur. His tongue flickers over his dry lips, his throat stinging.

“That... That doesn't make any sense. If you love something -truly love something- you never, ever let it go. You'd die without it.”

Did these people not understand that? Judging by their horrified expressions, they don't. Pity swells inside him, tart and prickling.

Jensen. Jensen would understand.

Just then a smartly dressed man arrives and hisses at him to not say another Goddamn word.

“Can I see Jensen now?”

Nothing else really matters until that happens.

No bail is posted, and he's kept in a cramped cell for ages until he's told to put on the suit his sister provided for him. He sits through a trial with eyes crusted open. The words both attorneys are saying garble and mush together. Lies. They don't make any sense. Like he's insisted before, this is all just one big misunderstanding, but the man defending him shoots him a look of warning.

Watching his and Jensen's life laid out before him -flayed and bared in crime scene photos- makes his cheeks burn. Their life together is private; what they did in their own house is none of these people's business. He's powerless to stop it though, worn down as he is from long days and even longer nights in county jail, alone. So miserably alone.

He only sits up and pays attention when “Jensen Ackles” is called to come forward.

A hush falls over the room while Jared's heart is busy doing somersaults at the long awaited and coveted sight of his precious boy. He doesn't look right though. His hair is shorter, for one. Standing there in a severe gray suit looking like he's playing dress up in his daddy's clothes. It's discomfiting. So covered up and businesslike in those formal garments. Jared wants to tackle him down and tear the offensive clothing off of him, put him in his favorite skirt and garters with sparkly stockings and carry him back home where they belong.

The one real thing stopping Jared is the shackles binding his wrists and his lawyer's hand on his arm. It's true; he needs to restrain himself. His poor boy looks terrified with his shoulders bunched to his ears and the green cast to his complexion. He doesn't need the horrible reminder of all these human-shaped obstacles trying to keep them apart.

Aside from a small, longing noise escaping his throat, Jared keeps still and watches as the love of his life -flanked by a barrel-chested man who only has dagger eyes for Jared- take fast steps to the stand.

As he's being sworn in, Jared does all he can to subtly catch Jensen's eye, but for the most part he's unsuccessful. Jensen, it seems, is already having enough trouble with maintaining eye contact with the bailiff. His near soundless, “I do,” is sweet honey to Jared's ears. He plans to hear it someday under entirely different circumstances; somewhere warm, a beach maybe, with a priest and matching rings glinting in the sunset.

Before he sits, Jensen's gaze flits in Jared's direction. Jared's answering smile of reassurance -hopefully all the love he has for this wonderful boy shining through- earns him a reprimand from his lawyer to cool it.

Jensen doesn't really look at him again, only darting glances caressing Jared's skin. After so long without seeing him, Jared can only shiver with want.

Then... questions are asked and Jensen... Jensen answers them.

Jensen is soft-spoken and more than several words at a time results in a painful-sounding croak. Jared wants to run and fetch him water; can't anyone see he needs it? But then... it doesn't seem to matter. What Jensen says -that has everyone, Jared included, leaning forward to hear- is a halting recount of their time together. Their honeymoon life meant to stay just between them broken down into clinical sentences.

Jared's head rears back. A frigid smack in the face spreading till he's gone cold all over.

What he hears is a horrific fun house mirror. The happiest time of his and Jensen's lives so grotesquely warped. Granted, the beginning of their story had its stumbles, but it was theirs and they were happy, weren't they? Different, sure, but happy.

Happier than his parents.

This. This isn't Jensen, not in the way Jared knows him. His Jensen wouldn't be saying these awful things. More of these lies. Someone had to be making him say them. The police or—or that slimy lawyer hovering around Jensen like a hawk would his prey. That son of a bitch is responsible for this. Is he trying to fuck his boy, too?!

Several times the judge has to bang his gavel and warn Jared's attorney to gain control of their client or he'll be held in contempt and removed from court.

By the time Jensen's excused, Jared's hands are shaking, bloodless fists hidden away in his lap under the table. Jaw ticking and the meat of his cheeks inside his mouth are chewed to raw hamburger. His head throbbing from all the pent up pressure. He still can't catch Jensen's eye as the boy all but runs from the room. Jared needed to communicate to him that he isn't mad, he knows Jensen is being forced, and that this will all be over soon and then they could go home. He doesn't get to though.

Jared's still seething when a short recess is called, and he's pacing caged animal circuits in a closet-sized conference room. His hands flex and squeeze as he imagines a scrawny neck between them and watches that lawyer's smug grin slacken and his beetle eyes roll back into his skull, all dull white and burst blood vessels.

The fact that somewhere in the building Jensen is here mildly soothes him.

His lawyer observes him silently, his mouth thin. When the man asks him to take a seat, it falls on deaf ears. His long suffering sigh, too. He goes on to express that it isn't looking good in there. He would try his best with his cross-examination with Jensen, but he doubts how much good that will do. The jury is clearly sympathetic to the younger man. Maybe it would be best to avoid doing so. At the mention of Jensen, Jared donates more of his attention, but there's so much frustration buzzing through his limbs he can't stop moving. His lawyer rubs at the stubble sprouting along his jaw before he opens his mouth, his eyes cutting away to a scratch on the table.

It would be in the best interest of their case if Jared doesn't testify. Jared's apparent lack of remorse and the extreme lack of evidence to support Jensen having stayed with him of his own free will would only hurt them. If Jared were to subject himself to the prosecution, it would end poorly. Perhaps if they filed for a mistrial and go with the insanity plea his lawyer initially suggested...

All Jared hears is the suggestion that he's crazy and no—no, there's no way in hell are they doing that. Nope, fuck that. And fuck you for even suggesting that again.

Five minutes later, both men return to the courtroom fuming. Jared's mouth remains welded shut as he had received a diatribe on how he isn't realizing the gravity of the situation he's in and the fact Jared isn't seeing that is insane, but it's whatever; the man's only here as a favor to Jeff, Jared's older brother. There isn't much to be done anyway.

And the man was right, there isn't. The verdict came quickly and swiftly.

Guilty of Kidnapping in the first degree. Guilty of repeated Aggravated Sexual Assault in the first degree. Forty five years imprisonment with the possibility of parole after twenty years.

Jared's legs almost buckle hearing this. His vision goes fuzzy black around the edges. His lawyer is already clicking shut his briefcase and beating a hasty exit. The audience at his back had erupted into cheers. Somewhere in the cacophony, Jared can hear Meg sobbing.

When two men in uniform start strong-arming him out, he snaps out of his stupor, resisting them. He struggles with kitten-weak muscles and drags his feet. He searches frantically through a sea of unfamiliar faces for one in particular. His eyes snag on his older brother looking back at him.

Throughout all this, he hasn't spoken to Jeff. Hadn't for years if Jared's being honest, but not for any malicious reason aside from having busy lives. Jeff trying to have a growing family of his own while Jared did all he could to not. It's been a long time since they were those two, little boys terrorizing their baby sister with creepy crawlies dug up from the backyard. Now cradling a weeping Meg to his chest, Jeff looks back at him much like a stranger does witnessing something disdainful. A disappointment tainting the stoicism.

It's an effort to tear his eyes away and keep looking, but Jared feels it before his desperate search has concluded and the doors he's dragged through slams shut.

Jensen isn't there.

:::

The inmates around him give him a wide berth. Jared's not surprised. He's a big son of a bitch with sunken, black marbles for eyes and clenched hands as sprawling as dinner plates. His gaze passes through bodies with a spectral chill. Inconsequential and literally nothing to him. His face a blank wall but his jaw a tick-tick-ticking.

The one and only time a group of three tries to jump him in the showers, he lashes out with rabid savagery. Hasn't enough been taken from him already? And when it's done, Jared's left standing on toothpick steady legs with busted knuckles. His side bleeding a sluggish trail from a swiping shiv to join the other scarlet pools from the other unconscious bodies littering tile as grime and carmine swirl down the drain. Blood slicks his teeth, and it's not only his. After his blurring, maddening stretch of solitary, no one tries to bother him.

His cellmate is a spooked, emaciated creature that watches him like any moment Jared's about to pounce. He jumps a foot in the air if Jared so much as blinks in his direction. As if Jared would ever. To engage in that crass, appalling act of violation; such is utterly beneath him. Even if Jared isn't spoken for, the mousy young man is a scrawny thing with greasy brown hair and pock mocks on his cheeks to match the track marks trailing his arms. A cheap, sputtering candle compared to the sun.

No, Jared sleeps and eats and only thinks of Jensen. He wonders how he is, what he's doing, is he thinking about Jared, too? He wonders how it all was so perfect and then it all goes so, so wrong. One day he's curled around the boy of his dreams in utter peace and love, and the next he's laying on a thin, pulpy cot that reeks of unwashed bodies and their fluids with unseen clanging, banging, shouting, cursing, and grunting from all directions clogging his ears.

They were in love. They were happy. At least Jared thought so. Jensen's testimony plays over and over in his head. Bite-sized phrases like “I was scared” and “I didn't want to” and “He made me” act like paper cuts. Thin, stinging, and -if he replays them enough times- Jared feels as though he could bleed out from them.

Death by a thousand cuts. Slow and painful but not slow enough.

Without Jensen, he might as well be dead. Almost. It's not missing him like one would a limb. It's not. It's worse. It's his insides carved out, all the bone and organs and viscera scooped out and Jared's left empty. Dark and hollow enough for a haunted house. Some days he feels as though he'll stand and take one step too heavy and collapse in on himself. He would if not for the echoes in the cavern of his chest whispering _Jensen-Jensen-Jensen-Jensen_ filling absent bits inside and keeping him just upright and whole enough to survive.

For now he must subsist on the memories of their time together: The sweet smell of Jensen's shampoo and the freckled, smooth satin of his skin. Eyes as bright as newly budded Spring leaves that would go liquid every time Jared entered him, surrendering to the beauty of their lovemaking. The intoxicating sounds of him. The addictive taste of him...

Jared doesn't cry; he knows better than to surrounded by wolves and vultures. He doesn't cry, but his heart bleeds.

He needs his Jensen back.


	5. Part Five. The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. Thank you so much for reading along this insane series. This probably isn't the ending people anticipated or would even enjoy, but hopefully it makes sense with the characters. It's not a complete end, so there's plenty of room for whatever you envision after the last word written and who knows I may return to this some day, but the chances of that are slim. Ugh, now I sound like a prat. Anyway, please enjoy!

Most days he wakes up confused.

The sun blazing through the window is on the wrong side. It's colder. There's no dead weight of an arm wrapped around him. Even—even the sheets smell wrong. He finds himself buying a variety of laundry detergents and fabric softeners he doesn't need just so he can find the right scent.

It's wrong, and he knows it.

His therapist reassures him everyone processes trauma differently. Maybe if Jensen did the homework she assigned him like keeping a journal or even the minimum of opening up to her, he could believe that. The “Taking back of his power and autonomy.” She's nice, but provided by the state and Jensen knows he can't see her for much longer. Well, unless he comes up with the money himself. He won't. Priorities. So he answers the questions he wants and keeps to the surface, refusing to delve any deeper, because he's fine.

He's _fine_.

And it's not because it would feel... wrong to. Like a betrayal, and that's so fucking wrong and he knows it.

His mom tells him he sounds better each time they talk over the phone, so that means he sounds better and better every day or, most times, twice a day. He'd believe that if not for the note -no, the symphony- of worry in her voice. It's still nice to hear though, just like it is just to hear her voice in general.

After suffering hours upon hours of examinations and probing questions, medical staff and law enforcement alike had finally left him alone, which was good. Really good. A relief. That might have had more to do with the mild sedative oozing molasses through his system. The stampede of police and EMTs down basement stairs, the chaos, the ambulance ride to the hospital, then to being poked and prodded all the while constant questions about...

It all got to be too much. Too loud. Too bright. Too many hands trying to touch him which was not okay. Not. Okay. They're not allowed to, only Jar—

He had panicked -all flailing arms and hoarse screams- then a needle had stung the meat of his arm and he was finally, blissfully left alone.

When a door knob had rattled, dread flashed an adrenaline spike until his itchy eyes registered the older couple apprehensively shuffling into the room. His mom had ran towards him, engulfing him without a thought into her arms and her achingly familiar perfume of damascus rose and peony. That smell coupled with the flyaways of her graying golden hair tickling his nose drove the point home that this was real -he was out- had his own wrecked sobs joining hers.

His dad had hung back by the door, the toe of his boot scraping the tile and not looking at him.

Still hasn't, if Jensen wants to dig into that bruise and reflect on that. The man had spoken to Jensen, even patted his shoulder with a conciliatory squeeze, but he never could meet Jensen's eyes. Jensen would never admit it to his mom, but that played a part as to why he refused to return home with them. She had argued and argued making valid points; he needed to be with his family, those who love him (his therapist would agree), but he remained steadfast.

It's better if he gets back to normal as quickly as possible, whatever it is that meant. She disagreed and by the end of a three and a half week long never-ending debate scattered between stilted meals and helping him piece his life back together (namely a cell phone), she relented. She had broken down into tears, squeezing all feeling from his hand. The guilt, first and foremost. They hadn't known he was missing; his calls home were always so sporadic; his parents simply assumed he was busy. But she should have known something was wrong. It's a mother's job to know when something is wrong with her child. His eyes stung hearing this as he scrambled to dissuade her from the notion.

He was right all this time though. No one had been looking for him.

Jensen held her, consoled her, reassured her he would be fine, but he needed to get back to his life. They needed to get back to theirs. He also had to promise at least fifty times he would come visit and if he needed anything -anything- he would call.

Days later, his mom pressed another teary, goodbye kiss to his cheek before peeling herself away. (And Jensen stood wooden stiff as she did so, suppressing his distaste for the physical affection.) His dad offered a cool, firm handshake -the way he taught Jensen to as a boy- before stepping back and leaving a folded check in Jensen's hand.

Green eyes -so like his own but weathered with age- glared just off center from him, daring Jensen to refuse and an ingrained part of Jensen wanted to. “A man doesn't accept handouts,” once preached the man handing him money now. With a grimace, he tucked it away in his pocket.

They returned home, leaving him with a phone and enough money to cover the deposit and first month's rent of the apartment they found him, along with the threat that if anything should go wrong, he is to return to their home immediately, no arguments. He thought it would take more for them to leave, but they danced on eggshells around him, avoiding all real discussion of what happened and their clear discomfort with it. They're small town, blue collar folks; they don't do discomfort. In his more prickly moments, he had wanted to bite out if the imprisonment and rape made their mouths purse in subconscious disgust around him or the fact it was a man that had done all this to him. They're not the type of family that talks about such things, so really he'll never know. They'll pretend all is normal come Christmas.

Each month he receives a check he halfheartedly refuses. Deep down, he knows he needs it like he needs food and the roof over his head. He needs it like he needs to find a job and support himself again. A different job, because there's no way in hell is he returning to his previous one.

It's just difficult in more ways than just the obvious. After depending on another person for so long, the practice of independence is foreign and intimidating. He's got his list of job openings, some interviews while others are just to fill out applications. He gets up, showers, and dresses every day with the intention to get his life on track -”Today is the day, I can do this”- but somehow, some way it all falls apart.

It can be walking from one room in his apartment to the next and noticing the distinct lack of chain rattling behind him. It stops him short over the threshold, leaving him dumbfounded. Of course he can move around freely. Reminding himself of this lifts an oppressive weight off his chest but leaves a leaden, even sicker ambivalence in its wake. It freezes him cold, staring off into nothing and he loses all track of time. Lost in remembering.

Sometimes he gathers the courage to leave his apartment to confront the trepidation being around people again instills. (A completely normal aversion his therapist insists.) All the noise, especially in crowded areas, gives him a migraine. Then there's all the eyes on him. Too many eyes on him. They make his skin crawl and his breathing fast. Too much. It's all too much. He feels like he's going to drown in the sea of faces. They aren't even real to him if not for their bodies bumping into him, forcing him back and back into a smaller and smaller ball until he explodes. All wheezing pants and shoving desperation.

Then all those strange faces look like one face: Fox-slanted, hazel eyes, a pointed nose, and then, grinning lips. Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear _“Sweetheart, don't cry—I love you—such a good boy for me.”_ He flees until he finds himself somewhere quiet and lonely with walls pressing in around him, cradling him. It can be anywhere from a bathroom stall or an empty corner of a room. Most times, instinct drives him to the closest thing called home and he's back in his apartment, unable to leave for days. It's all he can do to make it to his therapy appointments.

Sometimes he can't make it past the bed or the shower. Nightmares jar him awake in a cold sweat. Shaking fingers fumble for the lamp switch to dispel the tar-black shadows reaching for him with long, scarred fingertips. He curls up high on the bed with his back pressed firmly to the wall. Terror-stricken eyes darting, confirming he's alone -yet too alone- all the while berating himself for needing a night light. _Like a baby._

A slowed heart rate is followed by pots of coffee and hours upon hours of late night infomercials until sunlight bleeds through the blinds and he passes out. Eyes aching and his head full of cotton. He sleeps the entire day away. This cycle can last for days at a time.

Jensen almost prefers it compared to the nights he sleeps peacefully enough and wakes to a morning where the sheets smell wrong and he's too hot from the amount of clothes on his body with small humping motions into the mattress to relieve the tent in his underwear. Brain muzzy, it's so good -so good- but not enough. He grinds down, his back arching in a practiced move, waiting for a slithering tongue or probing fingers, then a wet cock to fill that empty place inside him, because if he's good, he gets to feel good, too—

Once he's at his peak, he's awake enough for ice to flood through his boiling veins. He jumps from the bed and throws himself into the dinky cubicle of his shower. The building's shitty water heater acts as a blessing, blasting frigid water on him. He huddles there until his teeth are chattering and his body feels like it's on fire in a different way. His folded limbs cramping. Pins prickling through gooseflesh skin and his blood is a burning slush in his veins. By the time he crawls out dripping and shivering, his erection has long gone soft.

Before when the trial had happened... Jensen had convinced himself things would get better. They would have to, right? He's free while the monster gets the justice he deserves. The prosecutor had gone over his testimony ad nauseum. Each recount, each tiny detail pulled out of him like splinters, had gradually become easier to relay. It was a script to be memorized, and he was simply rehearsing dialogue from a ghoulish play, like it all had happened to someone else... up until the day he had to do it for real.

His mother had flown in for his court appearance. His dad couldn't make it, because they were shorthanded at the garage, but he had sent along one of his suits. Its heavy wool material swallowed him up and trapped heat.

Whispering she was proud of him, his mom helped him with the tie, cinching it tight like a noose dangling from his throat and tucked against his breast. One cursory glance at his reflection showed a little boy playing dress up. A much different dress up than he was used to; one he was going to talk about much too soon. Fuck.

As soon as the doors opened up to a courtroom full of people, all preparation and paper man courage fled. His eyes immediately had sought out one face in particular -unable to put a name to the rush of emotion that swept through him at that handsomely haunting face- before pouring all of his energy and focus into moving one foot in front of the other -left, right, left, right- all the way up to the stand and turning to face an audience. He swore on the bible with a frog's croak.

Jensen tried not to look at him, but he could _feel_ him. A special vibration coming from across the room Jensen's inescapably attuned to. Jensen shrunk, his face on fire. Out of sight from prying eyes, he picked at the skin around his cuticles. Little, grounding flashes of pain.

He couldn't speak. He stumbled over his words. Oddly, he sweat buckets while all moisture evaporated off his flopping tongue. His gaze helplessly clung to the prosecutor, trying to blot out the collection of varying horror and fascinated disgust happening just beyond the man's ambling footsteps. With an audience, all the shame and humiliation repetition of his testimony had numbed flared inside him like an acidic wave.

He had almost ran -doing the right thing be damned- when his scarlet ears picked up muffled weeping and he knew deep down in the plummeting pit of his heart it was his mom. He had begged her -begged her- to wait outside; she didn't need to hear any of this, but she was hearing it and she would probably tell his dad and—

Saliva pooled around his gums as his stomach lurched seasick green.

He could never look either of his parents in the eye again.

The prosecutor was a dedicated and fierce man but not an unkind one. Sensing Jensen's shift in demeanor, he plowed through the last of his line of questioning. The court's stenographer had their work cut out for them deciphering the garbled mess whenever Jensen forced open the mashed line of his mouth. It felt like he had been up there for an eternity.

He flinched at every bang of the gavel as the judge's booming voice demanded the defense to get his client under control. Jensen didn't dare look in fear he'd see exactly what he expected: Big and brooding, his jaw like a knife, with a wounded puppy dog expression pathetic enough to soften all those hard edges—proving he knows Jared better than anyone. Like he knew Jared's hammer fists were buried out of sight, pulsing. Jensen could feel the memory of those long hands circling his windpipe, strangling the end of his sentence.

The utter betrayal that must have been etched on Jared's face...

As soon as he was excused, Jensen bolted. A spotlight full of pity blazed down on him, searing through his daddy's suit down to the first layer of skin, flayed open for all these people to gawk at.

A scrape of chair against floor to his right paired with a lowly growled warning, and Jensen could taste Jared's need to reach out to him. The fact Jensen's momentum faltered -a deeply embedded urge to give in and turn, to go to him like a good boy should- chased him from the room where in the nearest restroom, the bitter taste of Jared's need was replaced by the acrid flavor of Jensen's empty stomach. A painful, bottom of the barrel scrape.

The tears... the tears were just incidental.

Jensen didn't return for the rest of the trial, and days later he received the phone call he'd been equal parts awaiting and dreading. By that time, he had already sent his mother on home. He'd insisted on it, because he was right, she couldn't look at him, and she left quietly like a muted ghost. He'd answered the phone with a cracked hello, and the prosecutor's assistant on the other end informed him of the guilty verdict.

Jared Padalecki promised decades behind bars.

The man could die in prison.

It was over. Jensen was free now.

At first, there had been nothing. No reaction. He felt nothing. Then, laughter bubbled up his throat and popped past his lips like drunken hiccups. Those hiccups stretched and grew into mangled sobs. The strength of which had buckled his legs, forcing him into a rocking knot on the floor. A howling mix of relief and sorrow that had lasted well into the night.

The next morning, he had woken up to the sun in his eyes, his cheek glued to the cracked vinyl flooring of his kitchen, and a near empty bottle of cheap bourbon laying feet away, because he'd been with Jared long enough he'd had his twenty first birthday. Despite the pounding in his skull, the ache in his hip, and the foul-tasting fur on his tongue, a tenuous optimism took root inside him. There had to be to distract him from feeling so bereft. He could get up and do whatever he wanted -go anywhere he wanted- because it was finally over.

“But it's not. I've been trying and giving it time, but it's not working. I had goals -plans- before... everything. Things I really wanted to do and now... now I don't even know who that person is anymore. I wake up most days already ready to go back to bed. I keep thinking I'm back in that house, in that basement, or in your ar— Objectively, I know what I **have** to do, I just—I don't know what to do with myself.

“Do you know what that's like? To be so scattered? To be brushing your teeth or, or switching the laundry one second and the next you're so keenly aware of the missing parts inside of you? … No, of course you wouldn't. You've always been the type to know exactly what he wants. I guess—I guess that's what brought me here today. My therapist, she says sometimes it's just not possible to have all the answers and it's better to make peace with that fact and move on. It's healthier. In my brain, that makes sense -it does- but... I say fuck that. I just—I just have to know... why—why me?”

His eyes flicker up from the metallic cord rolling between his thumb and pointer finger. Cool to the touch and unyielding. A sad, grimy little role model for him.

Through the thick plane of glass, hazel eyes glitter from sunken, purple sockets. Dimples carve deep lines around a smiling mouth. He's lost weight and not sleeping either, Jensen notices and he has to viciously stomp out all achy pangs of concern.

He doesn't care. He can't.

Jared's chair is scooted forward as close as possible, the partition's ledge digs into his ribs. Up until this point, Jensen hasn't let him speak, launching immediately into the words that have been tumbling around in his head ever since he'd gotten the insane idea to come here. He had to know why though. Had he done something to attract Jared's attention so thoroughly? Was there something he could have done to have prevented all this? Just, why?

The older man leans closer, earnest. Hearing his voice again -the smooth timbre of it- sets Jensen's pulse fluttering, his stomach curdling, and his grip on the telephone's handset squeezes tighter with a creak.

“Jen, don't you know already? In every world, every universe, in every version of us, it is always going to be you and me. Ever since the first moment I saw you, I knew. Just like how you knew with me. You felt it, too. Still do. You are meant for me and me alone. I love you.”

A sneer snags at Jensen's lip, distracting from the rest of his body's reaction. The nausea, the agitation, the thrill... almost like a missing puzzle piece found, but it's from a different puzzle -the wrong puzzle- and it's not going to click in right, but it's been so long and it's been so tiring staring at those vacant spots and you just want it finished that turning it this way and that and taking your first to it and hammering it in until it fits just—makes—sense.

Anything to explain what's wrong with him.

Jensen's ear aches for how tightly he's holding the receiver to his ear.

Sick. This is so sick. What was he thinking coming here?

“I shouldn't have come. Fucking stupid of me.” He jerks with the intention to stand, chair screeching and garnering the attention of the guards stationed around the room and the few other people down the same row of chairs as him visiting other inmates. He freezes under so many stares. His lungs shrink.

“Hey, shh, it's okay,” slithers warm and familiar and _welcome_ into his ear. Jensen's heart stutters and almost listens. His eyes cut away, wet and lost, to a square palm and scarred fingertips pressed against the window between them.

A guard past Jared's shoulder snaps for him to remove his hand from the glass and he does. Slowly, it falls away and leaves foggy streaks behind. Jensen suppresses his shiver, feeling the ghost of them on his skin, mapping his spine.

“Don't say that about yourself. You're not stupid. You're not. You're... perfect, and I am so, so happy and grateful you came. I've missed you so much.”

Jensen shifts in his seat. An apprehensive frown replacing his panic. “You're—you're not... mad?”

“Mad?” And Jensen's forgot after locking himself away in darkness, Jared smiles like the sun. “Why would I be mad at you for anything?”

His helpless shrug pulls at the knot between his shoulders. It's obvious, isn't it? “I- I told them everything. Everything that happened, ev-everything you d-did. And now you're here.”

_I betrayed you._

Although there's a certain satisfaction for Jensen to see the older man bound, shuffling into view with shackles around his ankles and the knowledge Jared is told where to go and where to be almost every second of the day.

Jensen can't help but think back to those final days together. After months and months and months of resisting or reluctant obedience -knowing there is strength in fighting and cowardice in surrender- how easy it was to stop fighting. How peaceful it was to just give in. If he played along, it was open windows filling his lungs with the breeze. It was more lube and gentler love. It was chocolate chip pancakes and whatever movie he wanted to watch. If not for that woman -Jared's sister, he learned- Jensen probably would have accepted the mindless happiness Jared offered.

... and Jensen hates himself for that.

Forever oblivious to Jensen's inner turmoil, Jared snorts with a shake of limp, outgrown hair. The look he shoots Jensen is infuriatingly fond. “Sweetheart, I could never be mad at you. What happened isn't your fault. You're not one of the ones keeping us apart.”

A coldness darkens Jared's tone and eyes.

“If it wasn't for those cops or that man,” he spits, “Poisoning you against me, forcing you to say those vile lies—” Jared stops himself, his eyelids slamming shut.

Jensen watches his white-knuckle grip on the phone and listens to his harsh breaths crackling down the line. It's a well known sight for Jensen, and it pushes him enough to cautiously open his mouth to offer, “Your sister, too?”

The furious line of Jared's mouth crinkles in imperceptible pain. “She--” Sad eyes flutter back open. “We don't really talk anymore.”

“But you don't blame me,” Jensen concludes, bewildered. He shouldn't be surprised. Crazy or not, Jensen is well aware of the depths of Jared's love for him, but now he know it's boundless.

And that... that shouldn't be so reassuring.

“You're not wearing your collar,” Jared points out quite suddenly, startling Jensen's hand to fly to his throat on reflex. For a split second, he expects his fingers to bump against rock but instead meets the boney thump of his sternum.

He finds himself doing that a lot as of late. Reaching for something that isn't there.

Gaze dropping along with his hand to his lap, Jensen murmurs a soft, “No.”

Of course, he isn't wearing his collar. The EMTs had cut it off when the key couldn't be located in order to check his vitals and remove him from the basement. What he won't tell Jared or anyone else for that matter is is it's currently tucked away in a secret place in Jensen's new apartment. On nights sleep has turned against him, he'll take it out and remember how he would tug and tear at the now limp strip of leather in his hands, pulling at its ever tightening noose to the point of choking himself. Its edges biting into his skin -leaving marks the man across from him would caress and coo over- but the collar would never give, not ever.

Now without it, Jensen feels naked despite the many layers of clothing he tries to cloak himself with.

Jensen swears he's worn grooves in the pads of his fingers from tracing and squeezing the diamond twinkling from it. A specific fit. Dented, altered fingerprints. He studies them now instead of having to bear the full brunt of Jared's stare.

Luckily, a gruff voice announces there's two minutes left of visitation, and relief floods through him, and it's all Jensen needs to put the strength back in his legs. He sits up straighter. Around him weepy goodbyes and terse farewells commence. Then he makes the mistake of glancing at Jared in his anticipation to leave.

Across from him, a yawning pit seems to have opened up inside the chest Jensen's head once laid upon. A remembered steady thump-thump likely accelerates to a staccato. Jared's imposing frame is coiled tight, poised as if he's contemplating throwing himself against the glass and shattering it and shredding himself to ribbons like his ruined fingertips.

“Don't go. Please, don't go.”

“I have to.” His nerves are churning in his need to move, to get the hell out of there. When he stands, Jared lunges forward halfway out of his chair. Even with a plane of bullet-proof glass and armed guards around, Jensen goes scared prey still under Jared's pleading stare.

“You'll come back, won't you? I'll see you next week?” Hazel eyes glisten wetly under the fluorescent lights, the whites of them visible as if the older man's opening them as wide as he can in order for his enlarged pupils to **see** as much of Jensen as possible to take in every inch of him. Twin, black holes trying to suck Jensen in to their fathomless, destructive depths.

Jensen unconsciously leans into the gravitational pull of them. He teeters on the edge, swaying ever closer. Worrying teeth pierce the swell of his bottom lip. The taste of iron. One slip and he's off balance.

With a bone-tired sigh, Jensen's head hangs. “... Yeah, Jay, I'll try.”

Through the tear-spiked fan of his lashes, he sees the other man's face light up. A delighted flash of canines. He looks at Jensen like he's something holy. A deity worth worship.

Jensen wonders if Jared gazed upon him the same way all that time ago when Jensen was still Jensen and Jared was just a stranger jerking off in a filthy, little booth, looking but never touching. Before there was a time of no going back.

Jensen knows he will come next week, especially when he doesn't have to, especially when he fucking shouldn't, but he will. He knows it, and Jared knows it.

That house is gone. That basement is gone. That damn chain is gone, but Jared... Jared still has the key.

Jensen's hold of the phone trembles, slick with sweat.

Jared smile, says, “I love you, my beautiful boy” and somewhere inside Jensen is lost again and screaming a trapped animal's rage.

_No._

Face wrenching into a vicious snarl, Jensen hunches so close to the glass a voice snaps at him to move back, but all he hears is his own rapid huffs of breath coming through his bared teeth.

And Jared dips close as well, expression open and his heart on display—just like it's always been, staining and infecting Jensen like the curse that it is.

“I just want to make one thing clear,” Jensen hisses. A snake spitting venom at a predator. “I was never yours, Jared. You get that? You were only ever **mine.** ”

The hand held slams back onto the receiver. He stands for a moment longer, watching the older man pale under his black-eyed glare. Jared's sweet smile crumples, and there's hurt there. There's hurt, and Jensen wants to lick at it like digging cruelly into a fresh wound.

It's the most satisfaction he's felt in weeks-months-hell, it could be years for how much of a stranger that boy that stumbled off a Greyhound bus is to him now.

He'll be back. Maybe next week, maybe not. Jared would have to wait in his sad, little cell and see— _agonize_ over it, even. Knowing that—that this man who's kept him -loved him brutal- has to now exist in a limbo centered solely around Jensen's whims is a therapy that just might work. A toy to be used and sat back on the shelf.

It'll either heal him or destroy them both, and what more does Jensen have to lose?

Looking at Jared now -his insides boiling with a fine line hatred and sparks of lust- a strange peace settles over him. The tables have turned.

Jared is now Jensen's. His own man in a box.


End file.
